Facebook ads: we’ve all seen a million of them. While some are generic spam, many are very creepily on-target. Until now, Facebook has mostly used its massive hoard of detailed user data for itself, and to sell ads on its own site. But now the site you love to hate is finding a new way to bank on your favorite bands and brands, with a new advertising service that can let companies chase down and advertise to any specific group they want. [More]

Because your 493 Facebook friends likely won’t care in 50 years into the future (or honestly, 50 seconds from now) that you’re out grabbing fro-yo with your besties, Facebook is testing an option that would allow users to set a time limit on how long those updates appear on your timeline. [More]

Facebook began labeling certain shared links as “satire,” as a bit of hand-holding for its less-savvy users who can’t tell the difference between an actual news headline and one written by the writers of The Onion. But what Facebook really needs to do is start labeling so-called “native” or sponsored stories on non-satire sites so that your idiot friends might think twice before sharing a story that is really just an ad for some juice company. [More]

We’re no fan of invasive advertising that tracks you across the Web in order to deliver you “targeted” ads that are allegedly more in line with your personal interests, and we get a bit queasy knowing that Facebook and other free sites are then selling your interest data to marketers. At the same time, we realize that free websites still need to make a buck. But where do you draw the line? [More]

Perhaps you didn’t even mean to check out Maddie’s Amazing 3rd Birthday Party!!! footage on Facebook, maybe you were just scrolling along on your phone and stopped to read a post below that one. Nevertheless, if you haven’t turned the video autoplay feature off on your mobile devices, that sucker will start playing and could eat into your data allotment big time, as many users are finding out the rough way. [More]

UPDATE: Facebook appears to be back. Continue breathing. In the meantime, we’ve reached out to the company to see what could’ve possibly prompted such a brief, yet panicked outage, and will let you know when we hear back. [More]

Do you hear that noise? It’s thousands of forks clattering in the hands of Silicon Valley employees currently enjoying a free lunch. The Internal Revenue Service is taking a closer look at the trend of company cafeterias shoveling free food onto employees’ plates, saying that smorgasbord is a taxable fringe benefit. [More]

Everyone’s got one — the movie that makes you who you are, the one that turned on all the lights in your brain and opened your mind to a new reality, one that can only exist upon viewing that particular film. So when your best friend/boyfriend/wife/second cousin Thurman admits to have never seeing The One Movie Essential To Your Being, you insist they must watch it and be enlightened. And now Netflix wants you to put that pressure on your Facebook friends with a new social recommendation feature. [More]

If you’ve used the Internet for more than a few minutes, you know what clickbait is: headlines written to entice you to click on a link, boosting its traffic and its visibility on Facebook. Now Facebook is fighting back…and you’ll never believe how they’re doing it! [More]

It’s both hilarious and depressing when I go onto Facebook and see that someone I know is expressing outrage — OUTRAGE!! — in response to a shocking news story they came across online on a little-known news site called The Onion. Just this morning, I awoke to find that several of my idiot friends on Facebook had shared this Daily Currant story as if it were true, and one continued to insist it was authentic even after others pointed out in the comments that it’s a satire site. In order to cut down on the humiliation suffered by its users, Facebook is now testing a “satire” tag… that people will probably still ignore. [More]

Sharing is caring, right? Wrong if you’re a diner at a certain Australian restaurant that is now asking patrons who are part of large parties order their own drinks, meals and desserts, because taking up space and not ordering doesn’t exactly help the restaurant’s bottom-line. [More]

Even though it’s no different than other forms of theft, it can sometimes be difficult to get the authorities worked up about a restaurant customer who skips out on a meal without paying. But some restaurant owners are having success with getting these dine-and-dash scofflaws to pay up by publicly shaming them on social media. [More]

Maybe we need to stop writing about the instances where you are not supposed to call emergency services, and instead we should make a list of the times when you are supposed to dial 9-1-1. For example, if you are in imminent danger. If your house is on fire. If someone nearby is having a life-threatening health problem. When you should not dial 9-1-1: Facebook is down. [More]

As the clock struck approximately lunchtime on the east coast of the United States, the unthinkable happened: Facebook outages. Oh, no! How could the Internet cope? On a Friday, no less? Let’s all band together and try to get through this terrible time. …Wait, it’s back up? NEVER MIND. Those five minutes of real life were arduous. [More]

Have the urge to send a Facebook message to your ex at goodness knows what time in the morning saying Zeus only knows what? If you want to make that mistake on your phone, soon you’ll have to download the social network’s entirely separate Messenger app, or forever keep your peace. Until the next time you hang out with your pal tequila, at least. [More]

Have you ever happened across your high school bestie’s highly anticipated new baby-filled photo album on Facebook, but didn’t have time to scan through 200 photos? But, alas, when you went back to peruse the site later you forgot all about that album, essentially depriving yourself. Apparently, that’s a problem (if you can call it that) the engineers at Facebook have found a solution to. [More]

It is a disgusting reality that when tragedy strikes, there’s always going to be someone out there trying to take advantage of it for personal gain. That’s what’s happening in the wake of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was reportedly shot down over Ukraine Thursday on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 were killed. [More]